Take the SNAP challenge

We live in the richest, most prosperous nation on Earth and yet, 50 million of our fellow Americans are hungry. 17 million of them are children. We should all be ashamed.

What is especially maddening about hunger is that it is solvable. We have the resources to end it. However, we lack the political will and the necessary sense of urgency. We borrow and spend trillions of dollars for unnecessary wars halfway around the world but we continue to turn our backs on this terrible scourge halfway down the block. There is not a single congressional district in our country that is hunger-free.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as Food Stamps, helps provide tens of millions of low-income families with the ability to purchase food. Without SNAP, hunger in America would be much more severe.

In the next week, the U.S. House of Representatives will begin consideration of the Farm Bill, which includes the SNAP program. The House Agriculture Committee cut $20.5 billion out of the program, citing the need to “tighten our belts.” Yet, no similar slashing was done to the wasteful crop insurance program, nor were there any significant cuts to big agribusiness.

Instead, the committee decided to propose cuts that will throw 2 million poor people off the SNAP program and deny over 210,000 kids a free breakfast and lunch at school. It is a rotten thing to do.

As we approach a vote on the Farm Bill next week, I intend to do everything I can to raise awareness and enlighten my colleagues on the value of SNAP. In that spirit, tomorrow I, along with my wife Lisa and several of my colleagues and staff members, will take the SNAP Challenge. We will live on a SNAP diet, spending the average SNAP benefit — $1.50 per meal, only $4.50 per day.

SNAP has been demonized by some of my colleagues in Washington as a program fraught with waste and abuse. Such claims are simply untrue. SNAP has one of the lowest error rates of any federal program — less than 2 percent to ineligible people. And some of those errors are underpayments to the needy. And where there is fraud, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is fining and arresting those who abuse the program.

I only wish that some of the Pentagon’s missile programs were run with such efficiency — we would save billions.

In this still difficult economy, SNAP is what millions of individuals and families — many of whom work but who earn very little — rely on to buy food. It is not enough, so people turn to food banks, churches and other charities. These organizations have reported record-high numbers utilizing their services. They can’t keep up with the demand.

There is also the challenge of having access to and affording nutritious foods. For millions of struggling families, less nutritious, high-calorie foods tend to be more accessible and affordable. But these foods can cause health problems, ranging from diabetes to heart disease to obesity.

Hunger costs our nation dearly, with avoidable health care costs, lost productivity in the workplace and hungry kids who can’t learn in school. Several studies have concluded that the cost to taxpayers resulting from not addressing hunger is well over $100 billion a year.

SNAP is one tool to address hunger in America. The program is not perfect and could be made more effective if we actually had a national plan to end hunger. In the meantime, however, it would be short-sighted and cruel to attempt to balance our federal budget on the backs of the poor by cutting SNAP.

Some argue that SNAP was never intended to be people’s only source of food; it is supposed to be supplemental assistance. They are right. But for many families, after their expenses for housing, utilities, transportation, child care and health care, SNAP is the only money left to put food on the table.

And to those who say that the SNAP Challenge is just a stunt, I say, try it yourself. Take a week and spend only $31.50 to feed yourself. Feel, if only for a little while, the struggle that millions of Americans face every day.

Because it is difficult to be poor and painful to be hungry. As a parent, I can’t imagine anything worse than seeing my kids not have enough to eat. Food is not a luxury — it is a necessity.

It is unimaginable to me that Congress could consider gutting a program that provides the poor with nothing more than food. Yet it appears that’s the path we’re going down. It’s time to fight back.

Rep. Jim McGovern represents Massachusetts’ 2nd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.